Monday, May 21, 2007

Beat to the punch.

I had a blog idea in mind, something that had been rolling in my mind for months, and I was finally ready to start talking about it...

but she beat me to it. And she said it better than I ever could. Click the link, go read it.

My favorite parts of her post:

A lot of people refer to body acceptance and the accompanying social ideology as fat acceptance. This is because, quite frankly, it’s a big deal for many fat people. But I think it’s a wider struggle than that because our culture is constructed in such a way that no one feels good about their body. Thus the broader term body acceptance.

Because everyone receives these messages. It’s not just about being fat, though that’s the perspective from which I come at it. It’s about how bodies that in any way deviate from the “norm” are perceived and how people treat you when you don’t look like they do (or like they expect you to look). This applies to everything from being “too tall” to whether or not someone is able-bodied.

And that is what body acceptance is about. Realizing that your body isn’t the problem. It’s that “normal” space is too-rigidly defined, too narrow. Realizing that your body is acceptable just as it is. And once you’ve realized that, you can be part of a sub-culture or you can refuse to join in any particular social genre or you can work to make “normal” space more inclusive or any combination of all of those things and more. Because body acceptance opens up a lot of different options. You no longer have only one choice available to you if you want to feel good about yourself.